Posts tagged Facebook
Everything marketers need to know about the social media landscape
Mar 12th
Are you tired of wondering what this ‘social media’ thing is all about?
Do you want to know how it can help you?
Well wonder no more! Created for CMO.com by client 97th Floor, a new chart promises to guide you through the choppy and unsure waters of social networks and how to create social media strategy!
Yes that is reading like an infomercial on purpose – because frankly, there’s no excuse any more to avoid using social media.
The Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, won Cannes’ Media Person of the Year this week, Twitter launched an ad platform and MySpace announced a major site overhaul. So there’s never been a better time to understand social media and how it can work for you (and your client).
The CMO’s guide to the social landscape, takes all the major social media sites in the US and analyzes their capabilities in four sectors: customer communication, brand exposure, driving traffic to your site, and SEOs.
For the full social media ‘cheat sheet’ click here
Finally, a way to track ROI on Facebook has arrived!
Mar 4th
Facebook has today expanded its partnership with web analytics firm Omniture in a bid help advertisers further utilise the social network as an advertising platform.
The announcement comes as rival social network Twitter prepares to launch its first and hotly anticipated advertising platform and follows the news of Facebook’s new partnership with eBay.
Although Facebook has been around for a little over six years, advertisers have remained reluctant to spend ad dollars on the social network because of lack of ROI.
But, using Omniture’s products, advertisers will now be able to measure how effective their ads are on Facebook as well as compare their success with other ad platforms.
Advertisers will also be able to use Omniture’s search engine marketing management tool to buy Facebook ads.
Omniture will be able to identify highly valued Facebook audience participants depending upon their affinity to brands – as per their their Facebook profile, such as being a member of brand pages, groups and other information. This would enable the brands to serve their ads to a very targeted audience, which would ultimately result in a higher conversion of ads.
The partnership with Omniture, which Adobe Systems bought last year, aims to boost ad spending on Facebook.
Worldwide ad spending on Facebook is expected to hit £401million this year – a 39% increase from 2009.
More businesses are finally turning to social media
Mar 2nd
Improving the digital effort for ‘business’ brands means turning to social media to hear directly from customers.
Businesses are increasingly using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter in their online marketing strategies to market and advertise their products and services.
The 2009 Social Media Survey Report from Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia showed that 64% of companies surveyed had experimented with social media and 26% are heavily involved.
Just 10% of respondents were not using any type of social media at all, despite finding that social media can improve customer engagement – according to 73% of respondents.
Businesses are finally seeing the benefits arising from what is being dubbed as a ‘new-age’ approach.
Use of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs are also being incorporated into more and more public relations strategies used by many small businesses to attract new customers.
Israr Sarwar, operations director at internet marketing agency Adrac, said: “The Adrac team realised the potential of social media in the early stages of the concept. Engaging with social target groups during business and product development can allow companies to robustly test and operate new technologies with a constant stream of ideas and feedback.
“Direct response and brand building campaigns have been successfully executed through the use of this subtle approach to advertising that doesn’t intimidate the user, but acts more as an introduction service.”
The popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook means businesses have an easy way in to get there brands and products out there while engaging with customers and hopefully attracting new ones.
However, it’s not always an easy step for everyone to take so here are some tips from social media experts Mashable:
Step 1: Build a reputation of expertise
If a potential customer comes to your company’s website and sees an active blog with insightful posts on how your company’s product helps customers, reads detailed posts demonstrating your company’s knowledge, and comes across a few case studies, they’re going to be far more inclined to come to you for their needs. Social media provides an outlet for displaying who you and your company are. Talking about your industry in an intelligent way via Twitter and a regularly-updated blog can raise your company’s profile and brand it as a thought leader and expert in its specific business area.
Step 2: Research your customers
Everyone thinks of social media as a communication tool, but not enough people think of it as a research tool. With the ridiculous amount of data produced every day on social networks, blogs, and in conversations, it should be apparent that you can learn tidbits or spot major trends by tracking the social universe. Know what your customers are saying and track industry trends.
Step 3: Ramp up your networking
If you are competing with another company to land a big deal, it always helps to have connections and friendships within the company you’re trying to woo. You should always be networking, because you never know when a contact can become your advocate or even the decision-maker. And that’s where social media can help. There are a lot of things you can do to get started on the networking front. They key, though, is that you have to reach out.
Step 4: Learn from others
In the end, you want to come out sharper, more knowledgeable, and better prepared than your competitors. It doesn’t matter if you have 60 or 600,000 customers, and it does not matter whether or not you sell to general consumers or Fortune 500 companies. Almost everyone is using or tracking social media and it provides you a prime opportunity to make you and your business a leader rather than a follower.
- Seek out blogs and publications in your industry and subscribe via RSS
- Network with relevant experts, including those who may only be partially related
- Follow the insights of business leaders on Twitter
- Connect with those who comment on your own blog
- Make yourself very easy to find on the web – if people search for your name or your business, you should be at the top of Google’s results. Building a blog, using a Twitter, and creating a decent corporate website always helps
- Keep an open mind.
Google is determined to make the web social, but will advertisers benefit?
Feb 10th
Google has launched yet another social feature to its brand – Google Buzz. The search giant is determined to make the web social, but how will it benefit its search business?
Many of the headlines around today announcing Google Buzz focus on ‘Google taking on Facebook’, even ours does on the UTalkMarketing homepage. And while the search engine might look to be competing with Facebook, it is in fact just taking a lead from the pioneering social media site.
As I explained last week on Facebook’s sixth birthday, Facebook isn’t so phenomenal and newsworthy just because it has more than 350 million global users; it is credited with creating what we now know popularly as social media.
It has also forced other digital media companies to change. Just a couple of years ago Google was the king of the internet which had a seemingly endless reign. Now it is being challenged in every corner including new competition from Microsoft and Yahoo! in the form of Bing.
Google said on its official blog: “We’ve recently launched innovations like real-time search and Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step with the introduction of a new product, Google Buzz.
“Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience.”
That’s right, sharing is caring. And with this new feature Google is making sure that users share on Google – links from Google search, video’s from Google’s YouTube, photos from Google’s image search.
It’s locking its users down and making damn sure they stay on Google. An interesting way to beat off competition…and not just the competition from Facebook!
Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system. It already has the potential to reach more than 150 million monthly users (its existing Gmail user base).
It’s all good news for Google’s search revenues as advertisers will be fighting even harder to get to the top of those search results if it means they may feature in someone’s inbox too!
Remember, Google is everywhere.
Why your digital strategy is all about the ‘fans’
Feb 9th
Brands are increasingly migrating to Facebook, setting up Fan pages and getting rid of their own branded websites. But can social media replace a corporate presence on the web?
As you are probably well aware of by now, Facebook as yet again rolled out a new home page design. The site is still looking to make money you see, and to do that it needs to make the look and feel more attractive and navigation easier for users, including brands who have their own ‘Fan’ pages and profiles.
Everyone from Toyota to McDonalds, to Coca-Cola to UTalkMarketing has a Facebook ‘Fan’ page. And with the popularity and users’ willingness to become Fans, will Facebook Fan pages make branded websites redundant?
Coke is just one global brand that is shifting its digital focus away from traditional campaign sites and towards community platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, as social media begins to dictate their marketing activity in 2010, according to newmediaage. Kelloggs has also made a similar move and will host digital activity on social media platforms including Facebook.
The benefits of Facebook are simple: it’s where your customers are spending the majority of their online time (some 350 million global customers, that is).
Facebook Fan pages also allow you and your customers to communicate in real time. Fans can also communicate with each other allowing you to listen in to the conversation and monitor what is being said about you.
Also, you’re only a mouse click away and don’t need to build a time consuming and expensive SEO and site awareness campaign to attract visitors
Moreover, creating a Fan Page is free, quick and easy. People actively engage on Facebook commenting, uploading photos and sharing interesting links, helping them to feel like part of the campaign. Awareness also spreads virally when people joining Fan Pages appears in the news feed.
So how do you build a successful Fan page on Facebook?
1. Network with other platforms
2. Creating a resource
3. Creating contests that include participation
4. Empowering pre-existing pages
5. Targeting the proper demographic
Creating a Facebook fan page is simple, but it will also take time to build up a community of followers. Build good content, make it easy to share, and let people know about it, and over-time maybe you too could phase out your corporate site.
Happy 6th birthday Facebook – what did we ever do without you?
Feb 5th
Today marks the sixth birthday of Facebook. Although the site was not the first entrant into the social media space, it certainly put the medium on the marketing map.
In all honesty, I can hardly remember the days before Facebook. What were they like…it seems as if it must have been the dark ages. And I’m not even ad avid user of the site, but every now and then, it is good for something.
Not only did Facebook liberate us and bring the world closer together (so Facebook believes, anyway), it brought about an entirely new platform for marketers and advertisers, essentially changing the digital landscape forever.
It has, as I have said before, fundamentally changed the relationship between brands and consumers and of course, they way that consumers talk to each other. It has allowed marketers to test human behaviour, to listen in on the conversation and sometimes, manipulate us into promoting them for free (this, by the way, isn’t a bad thing).
With over 350 million users worldwide, Facebook is well on its way to taking Yahoo’s spot as the third largest web property in the world (Google and Microsoft are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively).
Last summer Facebook took the No. 4 spot globally, displacing AOL, but according to comScore there was still an estimated 241 million unique visitors a month separating it from the No. 3 site, Yahoo. In December, 2009, that gap narrowed to 125 million unique visitors globally.
In December, 2009, Facebook attracted 469 million unique visitors, up an incredible 31 million visitors from the month before, making it the most visited website on Christmas Day.
In December alone, Facebook gained as many new visitors as Yahoo did all year. That one-month gain was also the equivalent of adding as many people as all of Digg or half of Twitter.
For the year, Facebook grew by nearly 250 million unique users. Repeating that will be difficult in 2010, but even if it slows to half that pace and Yahoo remains stagnant, Facebook could overpass Yahoo within a year to become the third largest site in the world, all without even necessarily going public.
So how can marketers captialise on these numbers?
Stephen Haines, Commercial Director at Facebook UK, recently wrote a brilliant piece on UTalkMarketing about how brands can create and update a Page’s on Facebook. He says that Facebook ads allow people to engage with ads in the same way they interact with other content on the site without leaving the page they’re viewing. For example, potential customers can directly engage with your business by clicking on the “Become a Fan” link or the “RSVP to this Event” link. In addition, this action automatically creates a story on the person’s profile page and possibly in their friends’ home page “Highlights”—generating free distribution for you. You can read more here.
And if you’re more interested in learning how to use Facebook for market research, Ray Poynter, a director at Virtual Surveys, explains that marketers can use Facebook Polling.
He told UTalkMakreting that to find out quick answers to simple questions, you can simply log in, type a simple question, specify a geographic location and a sample size, pays as little as 51 US dollars (for 100 interviews) and the results start flowing in.
These polls are clearly not going to replace U&A or ad-trackers, but they could spawn new ways of working. Traditionally, we have expected everything to be designed before the research begins, but often the basic assumptions were wrong. You can read more here.
So if you’ve not delved into the world of Facebook, now you have no excuse. Facebook is trialed and tested – and it really does work in terms of getting in the faces of consumers. It’s true, I Facebooked it.
Augmented Reality is no longer science fiction, it’s your new digital strategy
Feb 2nd
Augmented Reality holds potential for a wide range of industrial and consumer uses, but marketing projects are one of the few areas where augmented reality tech companies are doing steady business today.
The market for Augmented Reality (AR) services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014, with revenues derived from a combination of paid-for app downloads, subscription based services and advertising, according to research from Juniper.
Marketers are increasingly trying out the new technology in an effort to make deeper connections with consumers, but is augmented reality really the next big thing?
AR may still not be at the forefront of the digital strategy, however, with the upcoming launch of the iPad this new medium could become more commonplace sooner rather than later.
Although initial service adoption will be driven by AR location-based search, Juniper Research expects the first substantial revenues to be derived from AR-enabled games, bolstered by revenues from mobile solutions from 2012-3 onwards.
AR is expected to be increasingly attractive to advertisers and brands as AR ad networks will be able to charge higher CPC and CPM rates because of location relevance.
But what will make AR so attractive to consumers?
According to Niall Cook of Hill and Knowlton getting people to think about a physical object (reality) and data about it (or data about that data) that could exist online are the two core components of AR.
He says that the technology will do a number of things:
– Provide the user with a way of capturing the object
– Recognise the object
– Search for the relevant data about the object
– Display the data in a way that augments the physical representation
Visuals are an important part of advertising, so it’s not surprising that so many companies have jumped on the AR bandwagon, offering tools that visualise their products in a magical and memorable way.
AR is already a reality in the US with consumer brands such as Kia Motors, Nestlé, and Frito-Lay all experimenting with campaigns.
The hope for marketers now is that it will engage an audience more deeply than other forms of social media, such as viral videos, fan pages on Facebook, or Twitter followings.
Is AR part of your digital strategy? We can’t wait to see what brands come up with.
Marketers still searching Facebook for that “Holy Grail”
Feb 1st
Facebook was offering up the “Holy Grail” of advertising in 2007. Two years on, what’s changed, better still, what has improved?
It’s no secret that Facebook has never been the “Holy grail” of advertising that is so promised in November 2007. Yes the site had to undergo some radical changes after the failure of Beacon, but the site still offers up some 350 million consumers. Surely advertisers can take advantage of this, but how?
I was there at the IAB Engage conference in 2007 listening to Facebook executives explain how they were launching something revolutionary in the digital marketing landscape. But despite all the fact and figures that pronounce the majority of ad budgets are going to social networking sites, why have the ads not got any better?
Alterian’s “Annual Survey 2009″ — which included 1,068 marketers, 62% North American, 36% European and 2% from the Asia-Pacific region — found that 40% of respondents were shifting more than one-fifth of their traditional direct marketing budgets toward digital and social media channels.
Overall, 66% of marketers plan to invest in social media, while 67% increasingly important or critical to success.
So where are all these ad dollars going then?
Just today, UTalkMarketing reports that Facebook is increasingly falling victim to hackers which could lead to users distrusting advertisements they see on the site. What’s a way around this for advertisers and marketers then?
The key is engagement. And to be honest, it’s probably a drum you’ve heard us bang before.
But with more and more users less likely to leave Facebook and as the number of users goes over and above 350 million worldwide, marketer would be silly to ignore the medium.
However, the key for advertisers now is to find the right way to advertise on the site.
Fifty-seven per cent of marketers plan to use their budgets to improve their websites so that they can open dialogues and increase engagement with consumers.
But how do marketers do this?
Here are some simple steps to get you started:
Step 1
Go the advertising page on the Facebook website. Click on the “Advertising” link at the bottom of the page. Click on the “Create Social Ad” button to get started.
Step 2
Insert your website. This is where users who click on your ad will be directed.
Step 3
Target your ads. On the next page you’ll have the opportunity to choose the demographics you want your ad displayed to. Choose a gender, age group, educational status, relationship status or political views or leave the options blank to create a more inclusive group. In the keywords section, put in keywords relating to the interests you would like your targeted group to have.
Step 4
Create your ad. Move to the next page to input your Facebook ad. Create a short, catchy title and a few sentences of copy to explain your website or product. To insert a photo, click “Upload Photo” from the drop down menu below.
Step 5
Choose whether you want to pay per click or per view. When you pay per click, you’ll only pay Facebook when someone clicks on your ad. When you select pay per view, you’ll pay every time your ad is displayed to a user. Then, click on the appropriate tab.
Step 6
Set a budget. Put in the amount of money you’re willing to pay every day. You may pay less than this, but this is most money you’ll pay for one day of Facebook ads.
Step 7
Bid for ad space. Facebook determines which ads to display by how much you’re willing to pay per click or per 1000 impressions. Choose the maximum amount you want to pay. The amount you actually pay depends on how much other advertisers have bid, so enter the maximum amount you’re willing to pay.
We’re still waiting for the “year of social media” and 2010 could be it. There certainly are a number of tools now available for marketers to track ROI on Facebook, but I’ll save that for another post.
Digital media industry leads relief effort
Jan 18th
Social media and tech giants are leading the way in collecting money for relief efforts in earthquake hit Haiti, proving that social networks really do bring people together.
Apple has set up a donation page within the iTunes store where customers can easily donate to the Red Cross.
Google has pledged $1 million and set up a special page for donations and added updated satellite imagery of the region to Google Maps.
Microsoft has said it will give up to $1.25 million in cash and in-kind donations, as well as match employee contributions as part of its standard program that matches up to $12,000 per worker in donations each year.
A campaign by the Red Cross and the cellular industry to raise money via text message donations has pulled in more than $4 million, according to a Verizon Wireless spokesman.
The text message-based donations mark a major shift in the means of charitable giving. According to Verizon Wireless, the $4 million in SMS donations has now eclipsed text message donations among all carriers for all of 2009.
A chorus of tweets requesting aid and donations for those worst hit by the earthquake in Haiti have been spreading across the web.
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have quickly grown to become an integral part of aid organizations’ fund-raising campaigns over the last two days. A host of 140-character messages have spread over the internet to reach thousands of eyes in the space of seconds.
Facebook statuses also changed, urging followers to help those stranded in grief-stricken areas through monetary donations to reputable organizations.
Haiti-born musician (formally of The Fugees fame) Wyclef Jean’s foundation “Yele” has also reportedly helped raise over $400,000 in text-message donations.
Websites have sprung up overnight in light of the disaster, including http://koneksyon.com/, a website dedicated to helping people find their missing loved ones in Haiti.
Making money by updating your status and tweeting
Jan 15th
A new Twitter and Facebook based social marketing platform for retailers will reward users for Tweets and Facebook updates of products they’re about to purchase
Remember how we said that 2010 was going to be the year that people start making money out of social networks? Well one company, Snatter.com, is intending to make the task a little easier for consumers.
Snatter.com promises to revolutionise social media marketing campaigns for retailers by rewarding users for Tweets and Facebook updates of products they’re about to purchase.
The free site will allow retailers to build social media buzz around their website and specific products or services.
The concept is simple. In exchange for a posting a Facebook or Twitter status update about a specific product or service, the user receives a discount on the purchase they are about to complete. Each update contains a link allowing their Facebook friends and Twitter followers to do the same.
Retailers can integrate Snatter to the final stage of an online shopping process.
“Just saved 20% on PRODUCT at @RETAILER http://link via @snatteroffers - Can’t wait to play with my new toy” (sample Snatter Tweet/status update).
Grahame Cohen, Founder of Snatter said, “In the past marketers have sought to draw on the power of Twitter by paying prolific Twitter users to post favourable comments about a particular product or service and often link to it. But users often see through these updates and consider them to be spam because the update has only been posted by someone in exchange for a monetary award.
“Snatter is different because users are only offered discounts on the products they’re about to purchase and receive no payment for doing so. It’s a completely transparent service.”
Snatter updates will also act as conversation starters on Facebook and Twitter. Many Twitter and Facebook users already actively update their followers and friends on purchases they’re making. With Snatter, they can continue to do so but also be rewarded for the buzz they are generating around a product or service.
Google and Bing now include Facebook and Twitter updates in their main search results so Snatter messages actively increase retailers’ reach.
A Snatter campaign not only offer retailers buzz, but it can also be used as a means of generating new sales. Many retailers currently offer discount codes but they are often promoted via websites that are affiliates of the retailer, so every sale using a discount code loses the retailer both the discount and the commission payable to the affiliate. Snatter takes no commission but therefore expects retailers to offer greater discount values than currently offered via discount websites.
“Snatter also provides retailers a perfect mix of social buzz together with the ability to increase sales volume through marginal discounting,” added Cohen.
The Snatter website is currently offering retailers the ability to request beta accounts to manage live campaigns during the controlled launch period. An API offering greater flexibility and integration of existing shopping catalogues and cart systems is to go live shortly.
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